


Broken If Revealed (The File It Under the Letter D Remix)

by significantowl



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Office, POV Foggy Nelson, Post-Season/Series 01, Remix, Reveal, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-12-26 05:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12051849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/significantowl/pseuds/significantowl
Summary: In a file folder buried deep in her desk, Karen has contingency plans, a how-to guide for keeping Nelson and Murdock afloat if she's gone. When Foggy accidentally uncovers them, a few more secrets are revealed along the way.





	Broken If Revealed (The File It Under the Letter D Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Broken If Revealed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4942189) by [Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer). 



Whenever Karen offered to pick up lunch during the course of an afternoon’s legal errands, Matt was the one who usually had to be talked into it, after muttering some nonsense about having brought in yogurt or a protein bar or planning to subsist on a diet of pure organic air; Foggy, who could tell when a human being just wanted a damn excuse to splurge, would just shake his head and say, “Karen, Karen, Karen. Why do you even have to ask?”

She liked to try new places. Sometimes the results were divine. Sometimes they were, well. Straight from down below. Foggy had high hopes for today; sticky and sweet were the only two hints she’d given, and his stomach and tastebuds were dreaming of honey barbecued wings.

“We should pay for her lunch.” Matt materialized at his elbow, swift and silent in that way he could be now when they were alone, in this strange new world where Foggy _knew_.

“The way she keeps this place together? We should pay for her to have a week in the Caribbean. But Karen knows the finances of Nelson and Murdock inside out. She’s not even gonna let us spring for the chicken wings.”

“So hide this in her desk.” Matt dropped two folded twenties in his hand. “She’ll find it later, and think it fell out of her purse.”

“Sneaky. I like it.” Foggy tried smoothing out the tell-tale diagonally creased corners of Matt’s bills, but quickly gave it up as a lost cause. “These have you written all over them,” he said, and swapped them out for two bills from his wallet instead. Handing a twenty back to Matt - they should be in this thing equally - Foggy got to his feet. “Okay, you’re coming with, Murdock. I’m not violating the sanctuary of her desk alone.”

“Fair enough.”

Karen's desk was a neat, color-coded land where in trays and out trays were stacked in an orderly fashion, and post-it notes marched in a single-file line beside the phone, as opposed to gathering in fluttery heaps as they always seemed to do for Foggy. He'd seen Karen reach for her purse often enough to know that she kept it in the bottom right-hand drawer. That made it the least suspicious place for a couple of twenties to appear, but Foggy still had to play this smart; ideally, some time should pass before she found the cash, and it needed to look as if it had become legitimately buried.

Several file folders lay flat in the bottom of the drawer. Lifting the ones on top, Foggy flipped open the final file, thinking to arrange the bills so that it looked as if they’d been naturally jostled inside by the constant back-and-forth movement of the drawer.

His heart stuttered in his chest.

“What?” Matt was on alert at once, head quirked to one side.

“Matt,” Foggy whispered, eyes racing over the paper in front of him. He flipped to the second page in the folder, and found it was even worse than the first. “Matt, she’s got - contingency plans. It's like a how-to guide for keeping this place afloat if she’s gone. And -” Foggy swallowed.

“Tell me.” 

“She has a life insurance policy. With us as beneficiaries. Not much, she’s just paying a few bucks a month, but Matt, people as broke as we are don't _do_ things like that unless -” Suddenly, Foggy could no longer speak. He looked up at Matt, and Matt’s jaw was clenched tight, but he didn’t look - he didn’t look _surprised_.

“Take the folder,” Matt said. “Put the money on her desk. We’ll wait for her in the conference room.”

~

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Foggy said once they’d settled in, the folder in the center of the table like a manila time bomb. Matt lifted his chin in acknowledgment, but offered no comment. “Do you have a folder like this? Or, I don’t know, a document somewhere on your laptop?

“No.”

“Life insurance policy?”

“No, Foggy.”

“Of course not.” Foggy blew out a breath. “You’re all about leaving the inevitable consequences of your actions for other people to think about, aren’t you.”

“I have a will,” Matt said quietly. 

Foggy had to close his eyes and grip the edge of their cheap-ass folding table, because in that moment, looking at Matt’s face was the absolute last thing he could do. “Well, great. I take it all back. Forward thinking, very commendable. So glad to hear it.”

“Foggy -”

“No. Forget it. One problem at a time, right?”

Suddenly, Matt cocked his head toward the door, and Foggy knew that was the end of it. He didn’t have to wait for Matt to speak, or for his own ears to catch the first clatter of high heels, or for the first whiff of syrupy sweet golden fried chicken deliciousness to reach his nose. Just that one tiny little movement was enough.

Foggy shoved back his chair, and went out into the main office. If he'd been working on anything lately, it was trying to meet people halfway.

~

The bomb went off just as loudly and messily as Foggy had expected. 

Karen was angry about the invasion of privacy, and righteously so, but Foggy didn't need Bloodhound Murdock’s truth-sniffing abilities to recognize when someone was clinging to a diversion as hard as they could. He said, “I know it's no excuse, but we were trying to do something nice for you,” and explained about the money; Karen deflated visibly, and consented to sit when Foggy pulled out a chair next to him.

“Well. That's all right, I guess.” The color was still high in her cheeks. “Just promise you won't do it again.”

Foggy did, with feeling. Matt, on the other hand, said, “Now about this folder,” and flicked his fingers towards Foggy, cuing him to open it up.

“Oh, it just... seemed like the thing to do? I’d want you two taken care of if I weren’t here.” She laughed lightly, slightly breathless. “God knows you’d never make it without me. The fax machine would eat Foggy for breakfast.”

“And the insurance policy?” Matt’s voice was steady. Soft. Dispassionate.

At this, Karen looked away, running restless fingers through her hair. “It’s not like - it’s not like you guys didn’t already know. I don’t have anybody else.”

“Karen….” Foggy reached for her hand and she let him take it, even though she still wouldn't meet his eyes.

Across the table, Matt folded his hands and leaned forward. “Karen. What if I tell you what I’m thinking right now. It’ll be a statement, not a question - you won't have to say yes or no, you won't have to say anything at all. Just hear me out.” He paused, letting that hang heavy in the air. “And then you get to ask me a question. And I’ll answer it. I won’t lie. Foggy’ll call me out on it if I do.”

Matt jerked his chin towards Foggy, and Karen whipped her head around to face him. Right up until that moment, Foggy had been ready to protest, because Matt was basically proposing putting a lie detector on Karen without her knowledge. But there was a glimmer of eagerness in Karen’s eyes that was hard to ignore, and Matt _was_ offering tit for tat, if Karen asked the right question - and by God, if there was one thing Foggy had faith in, it was Karen’s ability to ask questions. 

And if it meant finding out what was going on with Karen…. Foggy didn’t have _room_ for any more worry, he was already eating-sleeping-breathing his fear that any day now, Matt would be gone for good….

“Wow.” Karen laughed a little. “You sure know how to bait a hook.” 

Gesturing before him with his folded hands, Matt cleared his throat. “I’ll go first,” he said, and drew in a sharp breath. It was an sound Foggy knew well: Matt's “here comes my opening argument” inhale. 

“Something happened to you when we were going after Fisk. And whatever it was, it left a mark on you. I still hear it every time you speak. It's not - it’s not just fear, although that’s definitely part of it…. You’re afraid from the moment you lift your head from your pillow in the morning to the moment you lie down at night. All night, too. In the hours when you’re lying awake. In your dreams. And I keep thinking that must be because you believe you’re still in danger.” 

Why was Matt breathing so loudly? Foggy didn't understand that at all. It took him a minute to realize it was his own breath he was hearing, harsh and quick in his chest. While Foggy couldn’t hear Karen’s heartbeat or feel the shifts in her body temperature or whatever else Matt could do, he could see the blotchiness staining her hands and throat, and the way she looked away, hiding her eyes once more.

Matt was right. He was _right_. Whatever it was that had rattled Karen, it was something bad, and it meant Matt wasn't the only one living out there under a cloud. No, not just a cloud, a dark, ugly, churning, _violent_ sky. And even if Foggy went out and got the world’s biggest damn umbrella, it wouldn't be enough, not for a storm like that, not for Matt and Karen _too_ -

She drew herself up, straightening her shoulders. “All right,” Karen said, a small but well-masked tremble in her voice. “My turn.” Foggy was sure he knew what was coming next - questions about Matt’s “car accident,” and if Matt didn’t mention ninjas, Foggy damn well was going to, after all of this - but he was wrong.

“You came back to the office really late one night, remember? And you said that you’d had a really shitty night. Seen the bottom of the pit of humanity. You said you couldn’t do things alone anymore. You - “ Karen paused, and Foggy realized she was editing something out, something Matt had said, or done, that she’d decided could stay between the two of them. “You said you couldn’t take another step,” she continued. Karen lifted her chin. “I want to know what happened.”

Matt's fingers were twitching against the table. Foggy had no clue what night Karen was talking about, or what pit of humanity Matt had seen, and that only encouraged the anxiety building in his chest.

And it meant he was going to be useless at keeping Matt to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Foggy was just about to tell Karen so when he saw Matt reach up, take off his glasses, and slip them into his pocket. 

Heart in his throat, Foggy waited.

“One of the people working with Fisk,” Matt began. “Madame Gao. She had a heroin operation… I, ah, I went there. To the warehouse.” Out of the corner of his eye, Foggy saw Karen startle in her seat. “The workers there, this whole factory floor full of people, they had all been blinded. Oh, she didn't do it, she said. Not directly. She - she brainwashed them somehow. Convinced them to do it to themselves.”

“You went there?” Karen glanced at Foggy, incredulous, but all he could do was shrug. “Why would you -” 

“Because I'm Daredevil.”

Karen laughed, harsh and bitter. “Not in the mood for bullshit.”

Matt tipped his head. “Foggy?”

“Yeah,” Foggy heard himself say. “Yeah, he’s telling the truth, Karen.”

She studied their faces, looking for the punchline, waiting for one of them to crack. It was his own face that convinced her, Foggy thought. He could pinpoint the moment it happened from her suddenly wide eyes and her startled, parted mouth.

“I changed clothes in front of you the night we met,” Karen finally said. “Your next words better be, ‘But I really am blind.’”

“But I really am blind,” Matt parroted back, a small smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “My eyes don’t work. That part’s simple. It's the rest of it that's complicated.”

Karen demanded an explanation, of course, and Matt gave her one. It sounded exactly as insane as it had the first time Foggy'd heard it, but Karen took it well. Really well, even, but then, for her, nearly ten years’ worth of personal history wasn’t being turned on its head. And while she cared about Matt, probably in more ways than one (if Karen knew how many times Foggy had caught her watching Matt, she might actually blush to death), he couldn’t have burrowed down deep in her heart yet. Certainly not as deep as he'd worked himself into Foggy’s.

He was so scared for Matt, all of the time. Like Matt had said to Karen: from the moment he lifted his head from the pillow in the morning, to the moment he lay down at night. And now he had to be afraid for Karen, too. Morning, noon, and night….

An ocean was roaring in Foggy’s ears. A tidal wave, coming in. 

“You're Daredevil,” Karen said slowly.

“Yes. Karen, I can help you -”

“You beat people up, you - break their arms, you break their ribs, you put them in _comas_ -”

Oh, nice. A neat little list of things Foggy generally tried hard not to think about. A muscle twitched in Matt's cheek, but he simply said, “Yes.”

“That's how you do it. That's how you stay so calm. All day long. No matter how shitty things get. You’re so controlled and so _careful_ -” Karen practically spat out the word - “and then you just let it all out at night.”

“I'm.” Matt swallowed visibly. “I'm not proud of it. But Karen -”

Her eyes were glittering and bright, focused on something Foggy couldn't see, and he doubted she was hearing a word Matt was saying. She dragged a hand through her hair, pulling tightly on the ends, then burst out: “James Wesley. Mr. - Mr. _Confederated Global_. He found out that I visited Fisk’s mother, and kidnapped me. And I shot him, and I _didn’t stop_ , I was too angry to stop, I emptied his whole _fucking_ gun, and you - you get that, right, Matt? You get that?”

Foggy wrenched his eyes to Matt. In spite of everything, his gobsmacked expression was hilarious; clearly, this wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Karen was supposed to have confided in him once she’d understood that he could protect her. It wasn’t supposed to be like _this_. Nodding tightly, Matt said, “Yes. I get it.”

Karen pulled in a deep, shaky breath. “Good.”

Her words were sinking in now, like lead weights burying Foggy beneath that tidal wave. She’d killed Fisk’s henchman, his number one guy. She’d _killed_ him: he was dead. Fisk would murder her if he ever found out, just like he would murder Matt if he ever learned he was Daredevil. And that was assuming some other random asshole didn’t do the job first, in some back alley, any day of the week….

“Foggy.” That was Matt’s voice. “Breathe with me, okay? In, hold, hold, out. In, hold, hold, out.” And that was Matt’s mediation breathing, which damn, Foggy was going to have to admit kind of worked. “In, hold -”

Karen’s hands were clasped warmly over his, and Matt’s broad palm was weighty on his shoulder. It would be comforting, if only Foggy thought he could keep them there forever; but that was the problem, wasn’t it? And Karen’s file folder, Matt’s will - those were the opposite of solutions. Those were _parting gifts_.

“You're gonna kill me,” Foggy said, eyes closed, breath finally slowing. “The two of you. You're gonna put me in the hospital. I swear my heart can't take this.”

“I’m sorry,” Karen and Matt both said, almost in one voice, and Foggy groaned, and still didn’t open his eyes; their regretful, beloved, bound-to-kick-over-another-hornet’s-nest-tomorrow faces might do him in. Karen rubbed at his fingers, Matt squeezed his shoulder, and Foggy just let himself breathe.

“Forget sorry,” he finally said. “The next time the two of you are out there,” he waved a hand, “doing what you do, will you just - please, just remember you have a friend named Foggy, okay? Who would really like to see you the next day. And then do whatever it takes to make that happen.”

He squeezed Karen’s hands, hoping that she heard _even if you have to shoot your way out_ in the pressure of his fingers, even though the words refused to come out of his throat. What Foggy wanted most of all, what would do his poor battered heart a world of good, was for Karen and Matt to paint a few less targets on their backs in the first place.

“You're not going to lose us,” Matt said, with the kind of confidence built on minimal introspection, and a perfect example of why Foggy sometimes wanted to punch him in his perfect face.

Karen said, “Maybe we need to start another folder, and file it under the letter D. Not for Daredevil,” she added, and Foggy couldn’t help laughing a little at the slight fall to Matt’s expression, “but for Damage Control. If any of this,” Karen gestured between herself and Matt, “ever makes it to the light of day, we’ve got to have a plan to deal with it. One that keeps us all alive, and hopefully out of jail.”

“Excellent goals,” Foggy said. “Let’s reach for the stars. Let’s add one more: a plan that keeps both Nelson and Murdock as members in good standing of the New York Bar.”

Matt’s smile was half a wince. “I’ll second that.”

“I'll get the paper,” Karen said, getting to her feet, and Foggy followed suit, saying, “And I’ll get the wings. Wait, those were chicken wings you brought, right?”

“No, I think they’re soy,” Matt said thoughtfully. “Or is that seitan? Yes. I smell wheat.”

Karen laughed out loud, hands flying over her mouth. “Oh, God, Foggy, the look on your face! They’re one hundred percent chicken, I swear. Hand on my heart.”

Across the table, Matt slowly shook his head.

“You,” Foggy stabbed a finger at Matt, knowing he’d be able to tell, “you are a troll, and Karen, you just wait. He’ll get you next.”

Twenty minutes later, they were up to their elbows in chicken wings, sticky napkins, and scribbled pieces of paper with sauce fingerprints decorating the edges. The work was just beginning, the blueprints for their storm shelter in the very earliest stages - but for the first time, such a structure felt like a real, tangible possibility, with all three of them working together.


End file.
